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CARPENTRAS (Town) PROVENCE
Carpentorate (Carpentras) Vaucluse, France.
Chief town of an arrondissement on the left bank of the Auzon river, 25 km NE
of Avignon. Capital of the Gallic tribe of the Memini, neighbors of the Cavares
and Voconces (referred to by Pliny in his list of Latin oppida in Narbonese Gaul:
Carpentorate Meminorum, HN 3.36). A trading city and great marketplace, a political
and religious center, it became a Roman colony under the name colonia Julia Meminorum,
inscribed in the tnibus Voltinia at the beginning of the Empire (epitaph of a
municipal official in the Musee Lapidaire in Avignon, and inscription to the guardian
spirit of the colony in the Musee de Carpentras). At the beginning of the 2d c.
Ptolemy mentions the capital of the Memini as Forum Neronis, a name improvised
to supplant the native place name. The latter may have been related to the local
god Carpentus, and Carpentorate could mean the fortress of this god, the city
where he is supposed to have had his sanctuary. The Roman city was connected by
Cabelio (Cavaillon) to the Via Domitiana, by Arausio (Orange) to the great road
of the Rhone Valley, and by a secondary road to Vasio, the capital of the Voconces.
Excavations in 1965 in the Legue quarter, on a hill dominated by a
plateau 2 km E of Carpentras, indicate that this area was probably the original
home of the Memini. Foundations of huts hollowed out of the clay were discovered.
They contained imported pottery: numerous fragments of cups with handles on the
sides and gray Phokaian pottery bowls with wavy decorations, also local products
with the same decoration, imitating the Phokaian vases, and urns and basins of
rough clay. Campanian pottery is also represented, as well as some bronze coins
with the bull of Massalia.
From the Roman period, Carpentras possesses a triumphal arch, in the
courtyard of the Palais de Justice, very similar to that at Saint-Remy-de-Provence.
The arch has a single bay, and the archivolt springs from pilasters fluted and
cabled for one-third of their height. Their capitals are composite. At each corner
is a broken piece of a fluted column. The ends carry bas-reliefs symbolizing the
conquest of the country by the Romans. Two captives, their hands tied behind their
backs, flank a trophy to which they are chained. On the E end one prisoner wears
a Phrygian cap, a short tunic and long coat, and trousers wrapped around his legs
by interlaced straps. The other is bearded, has naked arms and legs, and wears
only a fur coat to his knees. The trophy is a tree trunk holding two horns surmounted
by two quivers; two swords hang from the trunk. At the base of the trophy are
a two-headed axe and a dagger with short blade and twisted haft. A round leather
helmet, without a visor, hangs from a branch above each captive. The bas-relief
on the W end differs in a few details. The arch dates from the 1st c. A.D., like
that of Orange, the city was destroyed by the Ostrogoths, the Franks, and the
Burgundians during the 5th and 6th c. A.D.
A. Dumoulin, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Feb 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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